Catch Hold Of The Power Of Sports: Media And Spectacle In American Culture Formulated By Michael Serazio Provided As Volume

story books the immense influence of sports in our lives, Hitting on all the major themes, he pieces together ideas that we sometimes overlook, While his vocabulary is clearly vast, he may benefit by simplifying his language, As sports evolved in to a huge business and cultural driver in America, the impacts merit scholarly study, That's what you are getting in this interesting and well researched look at the impact of sports and sports media, Whether discussing the evolving role of women in sports media, the parallels between fandom and religion, or the role of politics on and off the field, the book will make you think about the impact of sports on our culture.
A good, deep, entertaining but not light reading, Don't be surprised if, after reading it, you look at the impact of sports in a different light, A provocative, mustread investigation that both appreciates the importance ofand punctures the hype aroundbigtime contemporary American athletics



In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports.
On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church, This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment.
That timeless, live qualityimpervious to DVR, evoking ancient religious ritesmakes sports very powerful, and very lucrative, And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisierfrom hot take journalism formats to the creeping infestation of advertising to social media celebrity schemes.


More importantly, sports are sold as an oasis of community to a nation deeply divided: They are escapist, apolitical, the only tie that binds.
In fact, precisely because they appear allegedly "above politics," sports are able to smuggle potent messages about inequality, patriotism, labor, and race to massive audiences.
And as the wider culture works through shifting gender roles and masculine power, those anxieties are also found in the experiences of female sports journalists, athletes, and fans, and through the coverage of violence by and against male bodies.
Sports, rather than being the one

thing everyone can agree on, perfectly encapsulate the roiling tensions of modern American life,

Michael Serazio maps and critiques the cultural production of today's lucrative, ubiquitous sports landscape, Through dozens of indepth interviews with leaders in sports media and journalism, as well as in the business and marketing of sports, The Power of Sports goes behind the scenes and tells a story of technological disruption, commercial greed, economic disparity, military hawkishness, and ideals of manhood.
In the end, despite what our myths of escapism suggest, Serazio holds up a mirror to sports and reveals the lived realities of the nation staring back at us.
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